An autumn has come finally ))) So its time to change not only wardrobes but to think about a new perfume as well. You can easily say bye-bye to light and fresh scents and to welcome our beloved aromas with eastern spicy notes, tropical fruits and quivering wood chords. And the more the weather is getting colder the more we want to muffle in warm autumn aromas! Let’s find out what outstanding perfumery fashion houses offer us and enjoy the best Autumn 2008 perfumes!

• Lancome - Magnifique

The newest scent from Lancome. Anne Hathaway is Lancôme’s ambassador, who participated in the advertising campaign. The fragrance is a spicy woody floral one.

• Calvin Klein - Euphoria For Women

It doesn’t matter that the scent was introduced in 2005 since it is still charming, attractive and sexy. Love it!

• Giorgio Armani - Armani Code

Simple and sensual, captivating and bright, warm as your beloved sweeter and sweet as roses …

Do you love the following scents? Name you fav scent for autumn!!!

We’ve already showed you the ad, and yesterday I got a chance to see it (and smell it) in person. If you have yet to try it, give yourself some olfactory pleasure and head down to your local perfumery. It’s fantastic.

pic and info: Sparkle Shelf

Serge Lutens has just launched his first cosmetics line at Harvey Nichols, London last week.

Luten’s new collection to the UK, Serge Luten ‘Neccessaire de Beaute’, has been created in collaboration with Shiseido.

His new cosmetic line is cased in chic black lacquered packaging, baring the hallmark of great design and the expertise of a professional a make – up artist.

Some of his products being sold are a kohl eye liner – a rich pot of inky black liner that comes with a double-ended tool to apply: one end for fine lines, the other for smudging. The lipsticks, available in the ‘hot for the moment’ berry shades, are cleverly smaller than your average lipstick. This ingenious design means they will fit perfectly in clutch bags with room to spare!

Luten started his career as a photographer for top fashion magazines in Paris. He then turned his expertise to make-up in the sixties, where he produced a make-up line for Christian Dior in 1967.

In 1980 he was appointed Creative and Art Director of Shiseido where he started creating his world-famous fragrances. He created some of Shiseido’s most infamous scents including the ‘Nombre Noir’ in 1982.

Shortly after he opened his own perfumery ‘Les Salons du Palais Royal’.

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Just in time for the 80th anniversary of Andy Warhol’s birthday (August 6, 1928), Bond No. 9 proudly introduces the third in its series of Warhol eaux de parfum. Its name, Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue, recalls the artist’s formative pre-Pop years in 1950s New York, when he lived in the first of several apartments on Lexington Avenue and plied his trade as a prolific illustrator—mainly of imaginative shoes. Hence the Warhol-designed mélange of exclamation-point heels and high-button boots that covers the flacon. Lush and unapologetically seductive, Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue dares (perhaps for the first time in perfumery) to link two of the most ultra-feminine commodities a woman can own: fragrance and footwear.

The Warhol shoe connection

Back in 1955, in collaboration with Ralph Pomeroy, who wrote the shoe poems, and his mother, Julia Warhola, who did the lettering, Warhol published a little book, A La Recherché du Shoe Perdu, filled with his phantasmagorical illustrations of … shoes, accompanied by riffs such as Beauty is shoe, shoe beauty… (see: Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn). Thus did he elevate the status of shoes to poetry.

But why this fascination with footwear?

As a young artist, camped out furniture-less at 242 Lexington Avenue, above a bar called Florence’s Pin-Up, Warhol needed to make a living. Along came I. Miller, the legendary shoe establishment holding court at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, which chose Warhol to update its image with illustrations for ads that would appear on a regular basis in the New York Times and the Herald Tribune. He complied with what one of his ads called “the Daringest new way to sell shoes”: whimsical displays of the Mod new pointy-toe, spike-heel pumps; he even devised gold-leaf Crazy Golden Slippers for a range of celebrities that included Zsa Zsa Gabor and James Dean. So seriously did Warhol take his shoe illustrations that in 1956 he submitted one of them as a gift to the Museum of Modern Art. (It was rejected.)

The I. Miller illustrations hinted at Warhol’s future. A decade before Pop Art emerged, he was already advancing consumer goods as a worthy subject—perhaps the new subject—of art. What’s more, in these shoe ads he began using repetition to emphasize the product’s allure.
The fragrance

Now, fast-forward to 2008 as Bond No. 9 began developing its third Warhol fragrance (following Silver Factory and Union Square). With fanciful shoes the most directional fashion story in recent years, we found our theme when we discovered the rich lode of phantasmagorical shoes Warhol created on paper fifty years ahead of their time. And we relished the idea of sharing Warhol’s early career with our fragrance-sniffing clientele.

The eau de parfum we concocted is a floral woody chypre (chypre meaning fresh citrus topnotes and a lingering forest-like base) with highly coveted contemporary gourmand notes—a brew of peony, orris, patchouli, sandalwood, cardamom, fennel, almonds, cumin, and even crème brulee. A seductive and intoxicating autumn-winter fragrance, Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue is the perfume equivalent of that rarity, an outrageously luxurious pair of stiletto heels that fit as comfortably as a glove. Wearing the scent, like wearing the shoes, will turn a woman’s walk into a sinuous glide.

“Prophetically, Andy Warhol’s first job upon his arrival to New York City was to illustrate a magazine article entitled ‘Success is a Job in New York,’” said Michael Hermann, Director of Licensing at The Andy Warhol Foundation. “Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue celebrates the fashionable, sophisticated, and successful women of New York City through the whimsical lens of Andy Warhol and his artwork.”

The flacon

Depicted on the Bond No. 9 superstar bottle is a Warholian fantasy collage of shoes and boots, as commissioned by I. Miller, in rich, saturated colors. The overall effect is witty and sophisticated—as assured as the high-stepping optimism of the mid-century America of Warhol’s shoe-illustrating years.

Warhol and Perfume

“Another way to take up more space is with perfume. I really love wearing perfume,” Warhol remarked. What’s more, “for an iconic time, perfume is a way to see and be seen,” adds Bond No. 9’s president, Laurice Rahmé. “We were attracted to Bond No. 9’s creative approach to luxury perfumery which celebrates New York City,” said Michael Hermann, director of licensing at The Andy Warhol Foundation. “Working with Bond No. 9 represents a unique, unexpected, and exciting opportunity to introduce Warhol to an ever-widening audience.” The connecting point between The Warhol Foundation and Bond No. 9 is New York. If Andy Warhol was a mirror of his time, he also reflected the vitality and creativity of his adopted city—exactly what Bond No. 9 is about. With the Warhol collaboration, Bond No. 9 takes it as its mission to enhance the artist’s dynamic by connecting his vision not just with a line of fragrances, but with another kind of artistry—that of the sense of smell, and to interpret for today the scents of the studios, the clubs, the streets of New York that Warhol frequented and made famous.
About The Andy Warhol Foundation

As the preeminent American artist of the 20th Century, Andy Warhol challenged the world to see art differently. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. is a New York not-for-profit corporation established in 1987 which promotes the visual arts. In accordance with Andy Warhol’s will, its mission is the advancement of the visual arts. The Foundation’s objective is to foster innovative artistic expression and the creative process by encouraging and supporting cultural organizations that in turn, directly or indirectly, support artists and their work. The Foundation has given out over 1,700 cash grants totaling more than $70 million. For more information, visit, www.warholfoundation.org.

About Bond No. 9

In business for four years, Bond No. 9 is an edgy downtown perfumery, committed to designing artisanal scented evocations of the neighborhoods and streets of New York—from Riverside Drive to Chinatown to Coney Island. An impassioned client base advises us on which parts of town they’d like us to do next. Our Warhol series of collectibles, beginning with Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory (introduced last year) will celebrate the New York locales this late 20th century artist made his own.

Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue availability

Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue is available in two sizes: 100ml and 50ml, at Bond No. 9’s four New York City boutiques, www.bondno9.com, 877.273.3369, and at Saks Fifth Avenue nationwide.

Just in time for the 80th anniversary of Andy Warhol’s birthday (August 6, 1928), Laurice Rahmé introduces the 3rd fragrance in Bond No. 9’s Warhol series, Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue. Think pre-Pop years in 1950s New York, when he lived in the first of several apartments on Lexington Avenue and plied his trade as a prolific illustrator—mainly of imaginative shoes. Hence the Warhol-designed mélange of exclamation-point heels and high-button boots that covers the flacon. Lush and unapologetically seductive, Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue dares (perhaps for the first time in perfumery) to link two of the most ultra-feminine commodities a woman can own, fragrance and footwear. For the holiday season, limited-edition flacons ($575) will feature Robert Lee Morris sterling silver shoe pendants of Warhol’s shoe designs—four of them—on a sterling silver chain.

Andy Warhol Lexington Avenue will be available in September 2008 and is available in two sizes: 100ml ($195) and 50ml ($135), at Bond No. 9’s four New York City boutiques, www.bondno9.com and at Saks Fifth Avenue.

More info and bigger images after the jump…

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Dubai Infinity Holdings just announced that Karl will design 80 residential homes for them, including a limited-edition design (we're picturing leather glove wallpaper, but we'll see.)

But here's the best part: The homes will sit atop Isla Moda, one of the many man-made islands that make up The World, a cluster of islands in the Arabian Gulf meant to be a play land away from the play land from which anyone with about $15 - $50 million can purchase an island (we hear Jay-Z has one.)

The particular island of Isla Moda will be the first island in history to be dedicated to fashion - picture fashion-themed residential villas (what Karl plus a few other as-of-yet unnamed designers are working on), more boutiques than Madison Avenue, style concierges, design consultation services, a perfumery, and we can't even image what else.

Who else thinks Roberto Cavalli's next to get in on this?